Karyl Lynn Burns and Jim O’Neil are artistic directors of the Rubicon Theatre in Ventura. Here Burns remembers the late Harold Gould:

Harold Gould, a beloved member of our Rubicon family, died yesterday morning (Sept. 13). He was 86.

Hal first appeared at Rubicon Theatre in Old Wicked Songs by Jon Marans, which opened at Rubicon and then traveled to University of Judaism, the Norris Center and Santa Fe Stages. The production was directed by Jenny Sullivan and co-starred Joseph Fuqua. It was the company’s first tour. He later appeared again with Joseph Fuqua in Tuesdays with Morrie, playing the title character.

Hal was also magical as Monet in Defying Gravity, the non-linear play by Jane Anderson (also directed by Jenny). Hal was originally to have played Francis Biddle in Trying but stepped out once he found out he had cancer and would be undergoing treatments in Northern California. Robin Gammell stepped into the role and did Hal proud. Hal bounced back after his first round of treatments and even did a reading of Trying at the Motion Picture Actors Home where he and Leah lived.

Jim and I first saw Hal onstage in 1992 at Utah Shakespeare Festival where he played the title role in King Lear. I had by then seen Shakespeare’s great tragedy a dozen times. The first Lear I saw was Morris Carnovsky in St. Louis from the back row of a 3,000-seat house with no amplification — you could have heard a pin drop. I thought then nothing would ever top that experience, though over the years I saw many other splendid actors play the role.

Harold Gould and Stephanie Zimbalist in "Defying Gravity"

Then we saw Hal. They say in great paintings the eyes follow you. When I saw Hal Gould in Lear, I felt like he was looking at and speaking directly to me - only to me -that the performance was a personal, spiritual gift. It was heartbreaking. Breathtaking. At intermission, I asked other audience members if they had the same feeling and they did. I felt the same thing every time he was on the Rubicon stage. He was a brilliant, gifted, intelligent, soulful, truthful actor. I will never see a better Lear. He was a king — “every inch a king.”

Hal was a great gentleman, giving and generous as a person, and always made others feel special. He deeply appreciated small gestures. During Old Wicked Songs, we would leave little plants for him in his dressing room or outside his hotel room. He always expressed joy and amazement - you would have thought we had given him the moon. During Tuesdays with Morrie, we started “Chicken Soup Thursdays” at the theatre because Hal liked chicken soup. We would just have it backstage in a crockpot before the show. Later, when he went out on the National Tour of Tuesdays with Morrie, I was talking with him on the phone. I asked him how he liked touring.

He said it was fine but that they didn’t bring him chicken soup. We sent him some. Hal was also a consummate craftsman. Sometimes, sitting in on rehearsal we would hear Hal going through every line, emphasizing a different word each time until he was convinced which line reading was the most effective - most real. He was also perfectly prepared - he had always done his research - he always knew his lines, he always came with many ideas.

Hal appeared in more than 300 television shows, 20 films and over 100 stage plays. But ironically, he did not start acting professionally until he was in his late 30s. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Cornell University, where he and his beautiful wife actress Leah Vernon met. Then, for a decade, he taught speech and drama at Cornell, at Randolph-Macon Women’s College in Virginia, and at the University of California, Riverside.

Harold Gould with Joseph Fuqua in "Old Wicked Songs"

In 1960, Hal decided he should practice what he preached. He started auditioning and found immediate on-screen success. On television, Hal is probably best known for his appearances on Rhoda in which he played Valerie Harper’s father, Mr. Morgenstern; and The Golden Girls, where he appeared as Betty White’s boy friend Miles. He received five Emmy nominations for his performances in Rhoda, Police Story, Moviola, The Ray Bradbury Theatre and Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry, in which he co-starred with Katharine Hepburn.

Hal’s motion picture credits include The Sting, Love and Death, Silent Movie, The Front Page, The Arrangement, Seems Like Old Times, Patch Adams and Stuart Little.

For his cable television appearance in an episode of The Ray Bradbury Theatre, Hal won the Cable TV ACE Award for outstanding performance. Among his many television  movies he appeared in are The Man in the Santa Claus Suit with Fred Astaire and two of the Kenny Rogers Gambler pictures, Love Bug II and For Hope.

Hal recorded numerous short stories, such as “Jewish Stories from the Old World and New” and those produced by Symphony Space programs in New York, as well as numerous TV and radio commercials.

Hal made his New York stage debut in Vaclav Havel’s play The Increased Difficulty of Concentration at Lincoln Center’s Forum Theatre, winning an Obie Award. The next season he returned to New York to create the role of the songwriting zookeeper Artie Shaughnessy in John Guare’s play The House of Blue Leaves. The following year, Hal repeated his role in the LA production.

Hal won recognition for many Broadway appearances including Neil Simon’s Fools, Jules Feiffer’s Grown Ups and Tom Stoppard’s Artist Descending a Staircase.

Hal performed the title role in a musical version of the life of Karl Marx called The Karl Marx Play in West Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris and Zurich. He co-starred with Daniel Travanti in the U.S. tour of I Never Sang for My Father. He toured extensively with Lynn Roth’s one man show Freud.

Harold Gould and Mark Lenard in a rehearsal for "The Devils", the Mark Taper Forum's first production in 1967

Hal created the role of Nat in the world premiere of Herb Gardner’s I’m Not Rappaport at Seattle Rep. He appeared as Ezra Pound in a Los Angeles production of Tom Dulack’s play Incommunicado, for which he won an LA Drama Critics’ Circle Distinguished Achievement Award. Other regional performances include work at the Mark Taper Forum, the Ahmanson, San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, Bonnie Franklin’s CCAP and Rubicon Theatre. Hal and Leah performed together in the U.S. and Canada in such productions as Deathtrap, Plaza Suite, Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Life with Father and Love Letters.

Hal fulfilled a long-held ambition to perform the role of Lear for the Utah Shakespearean Festival, returning later to play Prospero in The Tempest. At Ashland and various other Shakespeare festivals, he appeared in Much Ado About Nothing and The Merchant of Venice.

Hal and Leah had three children of which Hal was extremely proud: Deborah, a theatre and film costumer; Joshua, an energy conservation specialist; and Lowell, a Ph.D. in animal science who works as a livestock reproduction geneticist.

God bless you, Harold Gould. “We that are young shall never see so much, nor live so long.” But we shall remember.

On Thursday at 6:30 p.m., please join a few of us for chicken soup and Viennese pastries downstairs in the rehearsal hall at Rubicon to celebrate the life of Harold Gould. It’s informal. Bring a thought or a story if you want to share. If you’d like tickets for Tea at Five with Stephanie Zimbalist, who worked with Hal in Defying Gravity, which is at 8 pm, call us and we’ll be happy to arrange them for you.